"Leap" into the unknown: The feedback thread

bk

Yes, the ticket machines are definitely the root cause of the issue here.

I think DB and the NTA need to look to replacing them with new, much more powerful touch screen ticket machines.

I believe the NTA are currently trialling an Android based touch screen tablet ticket machines with a private operator. I've always assumed that this was a limited trial to study this machine before rolling it out to Dublin Bus.

Such a machine would not only fix this issue, but would also enable a range of other nice new features, including activating online topups on the bus.

goingnowhere

Stevek101 wrote: »

Would be great to see all single mode ramblers being automatically available through capping.

1 and 7 day are already applied on Luas and Irish Rail

Dravokivich

Irish Rail have capping now?

Amirani

bk wrote: »

Such a machine would not only fix this issue, but would also enable a range of other nice new features, including activating online topups on the bus.

I've talked to a number of people who don't use Leap because of this very issue.

antoinolachtnai

bk wrote: »

Yes, the ticket machines are definitely the root cause of the issue here.

I think DB and the NTA need to look to replacing them with new, much more powerful touch screen ticket machines.

I believe the NTA are currently trialling an Android based touch screen tablet ticket machines with a private operator. I've always assumed that this was a limited trial to study this machine before rolling it out to Dublin Bus.

Such a machine would not only fix this issue, but would also enable a range of other nice new features, including activating online topups on the bus.

What you say makes good technical sense, but it is definitely not the plan. An awful lot of money was invested into integrating the existing dublin bus machines into the system. The intent is to continue to use that equipment.

bk

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

What you say makes good technical sense, but it is definitely not the plan. An awful lot of money was invested into integrating the existing dublin bus machines into the system. The intent is to continue to use that equipment.

That is very unfortunate to hear as clearly the existing machines simply aren't fit for purpose.

markpb

bk wrote: »

Yes, the ticket machines are definitely the root cause of the issue here.

I think DB and the NTA need to look to replacing them with new, much more powerful touch screen ticket machines.

It's not going to happen. Think about it from a project-cost point of view
- buying about 1,000 units
- fitting them onto the buses
- buying TVM software
-.integrating them into the ticket printer
- integrating them into the displays on the front, side and back of the bus
- integrating them into the GPS system
- integrating them into the magstripe reader
- integrating them into the Leap device
- integrating them into the cash acceptance device
- training the engineers about how to upgrade and service them
- training the drivers how to use them

And that's before you deal with the issues that will inevitably arise from use a touch screen interface in a far more intensive way than they normally are and potentially the problems that arise from using a portable, battery powered device 18 hours a day.

I'd be surprised if a project like that didn't have startup costs of about €2m. All this for a company that is struggling to stay afloat.

There are few problems with the current machines that can't be worked around. Auto topup is better for customers than picking up an online topup on a bus. If its still needed, Alex's suggestion that the RTIS poles be used as pickup points is a good one.

AlekSmart

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

What you say makes good technical sense, but it is definitely not the plan. An awful lot of money was invested into integrating the existing dublin bus machines into the system. The intent is to continue to use that equipment.

That integration appears to be presenting somewhat greater problems than foreseen.

From my Busdrivers perspective it appears that the interface between Leap and Cash is proving difficult to move smoothly and rapidly between.

I have personally counted down to 8 seconds waiting for the Leap screeen to appear,whilst the Leap Customer stands waiting for something to happen....multiply this by the number of LeapCard's presented individually and you may begin to see the issue.

Add to this,the blank-out situation which occurs when certain BAC Smart Cards are simultaneously presented to the remote validator and you get a further insight into the shortfalls of the current,post-upgrade,interface.

As far as I can see,the capacity issue is being highlighted by the sheer amount of Cash Fares/Leap Fares,Mag Stripe Transactions and BAC Smart Card Transactions,when the NTA SHOULD have used it's ITS Implimentation Powers to significantly reduce the various fare categories.

What seems to have totally escaped the NTA's notice is how Pee'd off it's own Customers are at the extent of these delays,which are SO noticeable to the user.

However,in traditional Irish style,it appears the problem will not even be deemed to exist,in the hope that it will simply go away.....which it will,as soon as those pee'd off Lepers high tail it back to cash.

antoinolachtnai

Those issues actually aren't that bad. Maintaining the existing system and buying replacement units is not exactly cheap either. The integrations you describe area really already done. The ones that aren't are just serial devices, pretty straightforward.

The android hardware has already been extensively tested for a public transport enviornment. (the main issue seems to be about moisture and temperature changes, rather than actual use. Gorilla glass is pretty resilient.

Dublin Bus seems to find millions of euros every year for capital projects that it doesn't really need, such as doing wi-fi trials and replacing perfectly good buses.

It is really nothing to do with cost and all about control and autonomy. DB want to control the ticket machine and, therefore, the cash and revenue. If they hand that over to the NTA, then they lose control of the business.

Conversely, the NTA is trying to avoid taking responsibility for revenue and for the DB business. At the moment, the blame for cuts goes to Dublin Bus. If NTA started holding the purse-strings, then it would be the NTA carrying the can.

It is all rubbish of course. What really needs to happen is for buck-passing to stop and everybody to work together to provide a decent service and drive down costs.

AlekSmart

bk wrote: »

That is very unfortunate to hear as clearly the existing machines simply aren't fit for purpose.

It's not that the Wayfarer TGX is unfit for purpose per se.

It's simply a matter of that purpose being far too unrealistic in the first place.

The ITIG were IMO,quite derlict in their duty to prepare the ground effectively for LeapCard's introduction.

This should have involved a significant reappraisal of the BAC Cash vs Card situation,with at least a 50% reduction in cash fare availability.

Whomever decided to allow LeapCard to simply mirror existing Cash-Fares,certainly failed to grasp the need to market LeapCard as a concept,as well as merely a Bus Fare Payment method.

The long mooted BAC Fare Restructuring needs to be brought forward to yesterday in order to get some life back into LeapCard on the Bus....there is already a notable level of negativity and downright scepticism about the operation of LeapCard,without the NTA themselves making it worse.

AlekSmart

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

It is really nothing to do with cost and all about control and autonomy. DB want to control the ticket machine and, therefore, the cash and revenue. If they hand that over to the NTA, then they lose control of the business.

Conversely, the NTA is trying to avoid taking responsibility for revenue and for the DB business. At the moment, the blame for cuts goes to Dublin Bus. If NTA started holding the purse-strings, then it would be the NTA carrying the can.

It is all rubbish of course. What really needs to happen is for buck-passing to stop and everybody to work together to provide a decent service and drive down costs.

All very true,and a damning indictment of how a very powerful and targeted Intigrated Ticketing Implimentation Group,comprising of a broad cross-section of Public Transport Movers & Shakers,was allowed (or told) to avoid addressing the core issue and instead proceed along a route guaranteed to lead us to where we now are.

With Dublin Bus being the Big-Ticket,in terms of users and useage,it's Fares and Ticket integration needed to have been put to rights 10 years ago as item 1 on the agenda.

Instead the ITIG faffed around with halfwitted nonsense about allowing the respective operators to maintain their (then) existing systems,with a view to integrating them at a later stage......"Never put off until Tomorrow,what you can easier do Today."

The Internal Politics of the thing should neither impact upon, nor be known to,the end-user.

The LeapCard customer should,at this point,have a fully functional product offering substantially cheaper use and faster transactions,yet LeapCard still bounces along at or near the lower levels of the pond....surely an investment of €38 Million and 10 years should merit a better return than this ?

antoinolachtnai

What is the proportion of leapcard vs cash users, in your experience?

AlekSmart

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

What is the proportion of leapcard vs cash users, in your experience?

After a very slow start my impression is that Leapcard is < 30% of total Paying passengers,with 50% still using cash and c.20% using BAC Ramblers etc. (All anecdotal and open to debunking at any time)

What I am seeing on an alarmingly high basis,is cash payers who,when asked if they arre aware of Leap,say they HAVE a LeapCard but with no credit on it.....I hear this several times per day,and I should not be hearing it at all IMO.

This indicates to me,that the LeapCard discount is not sufficient to motivate these people and/or they are not prepared to sign up for Auto Top-Up at it's current quite restrictive levels.

LeapCard is now becalmed,just bobbing along with the prevailing tide,which for something with such potential is a great disappointment.

Surely the NTA has some marketing acumen to be brought to bear,or is it really as bad as it seems ??

Dravokivich

AlekSmart wrote: »

Surely the NTA has some marketing acumen to be brought to bear,or is it really as bad as it seems ??

They had posters that were meant to show people holding'em and "leaping" between different modes. Only the background behind the people and the cards were the same colour, only for the faint outline of the card you'd not know they were holding'em.

Marketing acumen you say?

:pac:

AlekSmart

Dravokivich wrote: »

They had posters that were meant to show people holding'em and "leaping" between different modes. Only the background behind the people and the cards were the same colour, only for the faint outline of the card you'd not know they were holding'em.

Marketing acumen you say?

:pac:

Yes,Im left wondering if the NTA's advertising/marketing person may perhaps have a form of colour blindness...I always felt the Green Frog on a Green Background was,at the very least,questionable.

Product visibility is a very pertinent point,which LeapCard appear to regard as optional...If the customer can't spot the outlet/equipment then the thing wont sell...:(

bk

markpb most of what you describe has already been developed and tested.

Technically non of that integration is particularly difficult, in the end it is just a Java app running on Android communicating over serial interfaces.

Pretty straight forward stuff for any app developer.

Not saying that it wouldn't be costly to replace 1,000 ticket machines, but even 2 million isn't that much in the bigger scheme of things. The NTA and DB have both spent similar amounts on wifi, RTPI, phone apps, website, etc.

With Dart Underground and Metro North not going ahead now, it seems the NTA and DoT actually seem to have a lot of money to go around for such smaller types of transport projects (e.g. Dublin Bikes scheme expansion, Bikes schemes for Cork/Limerick, RTPI, etc.).

In some ways it is actually a good thing, a lot of low cost, relatively high impact projects are now getting done as money is being freed up from the super projects.

An android based ticket machine would really future proof the abilities and flexibility of Dublin Bus.

markpb

bk wrote: »

markpb most of what you describe has already been developed and tested.

They have already been done for a completely different platform. Unless Wayfarer have already rewritten their software (and all the DB specific customisations) for Java on Android, you can bet there'll be a large bill for DB to get it done.

bk

markpb wrote: »

They have already been done for a completely different platform. Unless Wayfarer have already rewritten their software (and all the DB specific customisations) for Java on Android, you can bet there'll be a large bill for DB to get it done.

Wayfarer don't need to be involved, the Android tablet completely replaces the Wayfarer machine.

The Java app just needs to interface over serial with the various card readers and printers, again not terribly difficult and has already been developed and is already in use by two bus companies in Ireland.

Even better it is an Irish company who has developed this system:

http://www.avego.com/2012/04/03/a-huge-leap-forward-for-irish-ticketing/

Stevek101

Full Bus Éireann East Coast fares now uploaded. Due to be launched no later than 30th of September.



http://nationaltransport.ie.cdn.ie/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Determination-order-for-the-introduction-of-Bus-Eireanns-Leap-card-fares-July-2013-All-five-zones.pdf

Dravokivich

Quite a few of those have cheaper cash fare's when it comes to the tickets. Why'd anyone want a leap card with that?

Stevek101

It says all cash fares are 10% cheaper...

LXFlyer

Dravokivich wrote: »

Quite a few of those have cheaper cash fare's when it comes to the tickets. Why'd anyone want a leap card with that?

I assume you are talking about the return/10 Journey cash fares.

I guess the difference is that LEAP offers unlimited travel within the zones for that price (rather than a simple return journey or just 10 trips).

Polar101

Dravokivich wrote: »

Quite a few of those have cheaper cash fare's when it comes to the tickets. Why'd anyone want a leap card with that?

At least it's consistent with the policy of trying to make Leap cards useless for commuters.

LXFlyer

Polar101 wrote: »

At least it's consistent with the policy of trying to make Leap cards useless for commuters.

Presumably most commuters already have taxsaver tickets?

Dravokivich

lxflyer wrote: »

Presumably most commuters already have taxsaver tickets?

Well, Taxsaver is a variable there. Your employer needs to be signed up to the scheme.

Victor

Dravokivich wrote: »

Quite a few of those have cheaper cash fare's when it comes to the tickets. Why'd anyone want a leap card with that?

It may be that certain fares are inappropriately low and are expected to be revised.

lucernarian

Victor wrote: »

It may be that certain fares are inappropriately low and are expected to be revised.

I wouldn't in a month of Sundays pay €16.80 with a Leap card for a return from Drogheda when I can walk over to the Matthews coaches nearby and pay €12 for a return with no expiry date... And some of the Matthews coaches have Leap card machines fitted out too.

Commercial realities do have to be reflected if Bus Eireann expect people to actually take their bus to Dublin!

As an aside, what happens in the case of boarding a bus from an intermediate location between two "zones" on a route?

goingnowhere

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

I wouldn't in a month of Sundays pay €16.80 with a Leap card for a return from Drogheda when I can walk over to the Matthews coaches nearby and pay €12 for a return with no expiry date... And some of the Matthews coaches have Leap card machines fitted out too.

The rolling 24 hour fare is most likely a capping implementation so the customer does not request it, it is applied automatically subject to use

foggy_lad

lxflyer wrote: »

I assume you are talking about the return/10 Journey cash fares.

I guess the difference is that LEAP offers unlimited travel within the zones for that price (rather than a simple return journey or just 10 trips).

goingnowhere wrote: »

The rolling 24 hour fare is most likely a capping implementation so the customer does not request it, it is applied automatically subject to use

Most customers want to go to or from work or school once a day in each direction! it would make sense for such a move on Dublin Bus but not for the much longer distances covered by Bus Eireann buses and coaches, It is making most customers pay for something that only very few will ever use.

Stevek101

Noticed a new message being displayed on the TVM today. Companion is displayed after showing the fare capping balance. Any suggestions as to what this is?